Boxoffice Pro Issues its Forecast for Captain America 4's Opening

I previously estimated that Captain America 4's worldwide box office gross would be well short of that of the third film from 2016 even in current dollars, and that the tracking-based estimate for the opening weekend, positing a gross of some $86-$95 million in the first three days in the domestic market, suggests the film's finishing with $500-$600 million taken in worldwide as the most probable outcome.

Boxoffice Pro had then not yet put out its own forecast (these days they do so just three, rather than four, weeks in advance of a film's release), but they have their estimate out now--some $70-$85 million for the three day period, as reported almost two weeks closer to the release date. Assuming the same combination of legs in the domestic market, and a commensurate international response, as I forecast in the prior piece, this implies a range of more like $400-$500 million.

Boxoffice Pro's assessment says nothing about a decline in expectations, but all the same, their figure's being even lower, and that with just three weeks to go until the movie's debut, reaffirms the impression that this is not what the backers of this movie need given the film's $350 million+ cost for production alone, and Marvel Cinematic Universe's combination of a shaky market position and big plans now. Indeed, between the price tag for the movie (implying a need for a gross of $600 million or more for the backers to just break even given the structuring of revenues), the billion-dollar hit that Captain America 3 was in current dollars, the (almost) billion-dollar hit that Captain America 2 was in real, inflation-adjusted dollars, the billion dollar hit that Deadpool also was, and the public relations importance of the billion-dollar mark generally these days, it seems that nothing much short of--you guessed it--a billion dollars will do given the need of the MCU to show that Marvel's really back (for all its success, Deadpool & Wolverine was too idiosyncratic a film to prove that by itself). The result is that nothing short of a great "overperformance" relative to the current expectations will save the day here, with all that implies for the franchise in which the relaunch of Captain America is so important an element.